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It is arrogant to make sweeping statements wherein one presumes to be an arbiter of competence. If you think their arguments aren't sufficiently cogent or artic

by rl3 12y ago

It is arrogant to make sweeping statements wherein one presumes to be an arbiter of competence. If you think their arguments aren't sufficiently cogent or articulated, then suggest a counterargument rather than dismissing them on the basis of something other than their words. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. Artificial intelligence experts today may be able to render guesses more accurate than most as to the arrival of superintelligence via the AGI path. However, this does not confer upon them any sort of authoritative high ground on the matter, nor does it place the issue squarely in their domain. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
Your post says too much, basically: "Nobody is an expert therefore everyone can add to the debate." Sorry, not the case. There are actually people who are studying AGI full time and have made it their life work, regardless of whether you know about it or not. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. How do you figure? There are AGI journals[1], conferences[2], speaker circuits, hackathons etc...So I think you just don't know about them. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation. This is a great analogy and I often make the comparison between nuclear technologies (power, radiometry, weapons) to AGI because of scope and potential. The problem however with your analogy is that the current experts aren't analogous to explosives experts, they are more analogous to Szilárd/Einstein. This is why I advocate for an AGI Manhattan project. We need about between 5-10 years of the smartest people alive working on building it. Not thinking about it, building towards it. [1]http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi [2]http://agi-conf.org/ http://agi-conf.org/
- rl3 12y ago
  Close, but a more accurate generalization might read: "Nobody is an expert. Therefore everyone can add to the debate, provided their argument has merit." >There are actually people who are studying AGI full time and have made it their life work, regardless of whether you know about it or not. You mean like the people at MIRI? In a previous post, you suggest that most of them don't deserve any play at all on the topic. >How do you figure? There are AGI journals[1], conferences[2], speaker circuits, hackathons etc...So I think you just don't know about them. Oh but I do, and my statement still stands regardless. AGI does not yet exist. The field itself is in its infancy, and hardly established relative to other fields. As such, there are no experts, nor any consensus, at least not in any authoritative sense. If you insist upon dismissing the input of select people entirely, then the bar for such a decision should be that they are authoritatively incorrect, or that they are authoritatively unqualified to speak. The problem is that there is nothing to derive such authority from yet, precisely because the field is in its infancy. >The problem however with your analogy is that the current experts aren't analogous to explosives experts, they are more analogous to Szilárd/Einstein. Unlike atomic weapons prior to the first test shot (or even prior to Fermi's Chicago Pile-1 experiment), AGI does not yet have a solid theoretical underpinning, let alone a proof of concept. Perhaps the best analogy lies somewhere in between our interpretations. >This is why I advocate for an AGI Manhattan project. Funny enough we're in total agreement here. I was even advocating for the same thing via another post in this thread. >Not thinking about it, building towards it. There is the question of timing. If the Manhattan Project itself was initiated earlier than it had been, there may not have been enough time for the aforementioned theoretical underpinnings to have been reasoned about to the level they were.
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    You mean like the people at MIRI? In a previous post, you suggest that most of them don't deserve any play at all on the topic. No, like Joscha Bach, Yoshua Bengio, Ben Goertzel etc... the MIRI people are thinking about AI, not working on it. I should have made that point clearer and said as much. For AGI building = research, thinking =/= research. So for example, my Masters thesis is AGI implications of a nation state building it. This includes several rough roadmaps to AGI. I would not call myself anything close to an expert or researcher working on AGI because I am not building systems that are testing hypotheses about machine intelligence. AGI does not yet exist. Once it does, the field (in theory) doesn't really exist anymore really. So there can only be a research into it before it is complete. Arguably an AGI's (if you fall on the side of it being complete at "birth") recursive self improvement makes human input basically worthless. The only consensus we will come to is when we all agree that the thing we built is actually an AGI. I can talk about those measures but at the end of the day most of the leading people think it's going to be "we'll know it when we see it." Unlike atomic weapons prior to the first test shot (or even prior to Fermi's Chicago Pile-1 experiment), AGI does not yet have a solid theoretical underpinning, let alone a proof of concept. Exactly. Which has been my point all along. Arguing about safety is totally a worthless effort, and harmful in my opinion, when we have no idea what the foundations are or the paths to it. When people are calling for regulation before we have anything like real funding for it it totally stifles the field. At best it diverts resources to making "provably safe" AI which is an endless rabbit hole in my opinion because it's an impossible metric. there may not have been enough time for the aforementioned theoretical underpinnings to have been reasoned about to the level they were. Enough time? That makes no sense. Lets instead call it an "Delta project" for AI - the entire front end of the project can be building the theoretical framework. There are no rules stating that a project has to be turnkey to realize a goal.

by rl3 12y ago

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

Your post says too much, basically: "Nobody is an expert therefore everyone can add to the debate." Sorry, not the case. There are actually people who are studying AGI full time and have made it their life work, regardless of whether you know about it or not. Unlike climatology, superintelligence is not yet an established scientific field. It does not currently exist to study. There are no experts. There is no consensus to be had. Everyone is technically unqualified to speak on the subject. How do you figure? There are AGI journals[1], conferences[2], speaker circuits, hackathons etc...So I think you just don't know about them. Doing so would be analogous to trusting a group of explosives experts circa 1944 in saying that we have nothing to fear from atomic weapons, because such devices are to utilize conventional explosive mechanisms in their operation. This is a great analogy and I often make the comparison between nuclear technologies (power, radiometry, weapons) to AGI because of scope and potential. The problem however with your analogy is that the current experts aren't analogous to explosives experts, they are more analogous to Szilárd/Einstein. This is why I advocate for an AGI Manhattan project. We need about between 5-10 years of the smartest people alive working on building it. Not thinking about it, building towards it. [1]http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jagi [2]http://agi-conf.org/ http://agi-conf.org/

rl3 12y ago
Close, but a more accurate generalization might read: "Nobody is an expert. Therefore everyone can add to the debate, provided their argument has merit." >There are actually people who are studying AGI full time and have made it their life work, regardless of whether you know about it or not. You mean like the people at MIRI? In a previous post, you suggest that most of them don't deserve any play at all on the topic. >How do you figure? There are AGI journals[1], conferences[2], speaker circuits, hackathons etc...So I think you just don't know about them. Oh but I do, and my statement still stands regardless. AGI does not yet exist. The field itself is in its infancy, and hardly established relative to other fields. As such, there are no experts, nor any consensus, at least not in any authoritative sense. If you insist upon dismissing the input of select people entirely, then the bar for such a decision should be that they are authoritatively incorrect, or that they are authoritatively unqualified to speak. The problem is that there is nothing to derive such authority from yet, precisely because the field is in its infancy. >The problem however with your analogy is that the current experts aren't analogous to explosives experts, they are more analogous to Szilárd/Einstein. Unlike atomic weapons prior to the first test shot (or even prior to Fermi's Chicago Pile-1 experiment), AGI does not yet have a solid theoretical underpinning, let alone a proof of concept. Perhaps the best analogy lies somewhere in between our interpretations. >This is why I advocate for an AGI Manhattan project. Funny enough we're in total agreement here. I was even advocating for the same thing via another post in this thread. >Not thinking about it, building towards it. There is the question of timing. If the Manhattan Project itself was initiated earlier than it had been, there may not have been enough time for the aforementioned theoretical underpinnings to have been reasoned about to the level they were.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  You mean like the people at MIRI? In a previous post, you suggest that most of them don't deserve any play at all on the topic. No, like Joscha Bach, Yoshua Bengio, Ben Goertzel etc... the MIRI people are thinking about AI, not working on it. I should have made that point clearer and said as much. For AGI building = research, thinking =/= research. So for example, my Masters thesis is AGI implications of a nation state building it. This includes several rough roadmaps to AGI. I would not call myself anything close to an expert or researcher working on AGI because I am not building systems that are testing hypotheses about machine intelligence. AGI does not yet exist. Once it does, the field (in theory) doesn't really exist anymore really. So there can only be a research into it before it is complete. Arguably an AGI's (if you fall on the side of it being complete at "birth") recursive self improvement makes human input basically worthless. The only consensus we will come to is when we all agree that the thing we built is actually an AGI. I can talk about those measures but at the end of the day most of the leading people think it's going to be "we'll know it when we see it." Unlike atomic weapons prior to the first test shot (or even prior to Fermi's Chicago Pile-1 experiment), AGI does not yet have a solid theoretical underpinning, let alone a proof of concept. Exactly. Which has been my point all along. Arguing about safety is totally a worthless effort, and harmful in my opinion, when we have no idea what the foundations are or the paths to it. When people are calling for regulation before we have anything like real funding for it it totally stifles the field. At best it diverts resources to making "provably safe" AI which is an endless rabbit hole in my opinion because it's an impossible metric. there may not have been enough time for the aforementioned theoretical underpinnings to have been reasoned about to the level they were. Enough time? That makes no sense. Lets instead call it an "Delta project" for AI - the entire front end of the project can be building the theoretical framework. There are no rules stating that a project has to be turnkey to realize a goal.